I have too much stuff!

By Judy at My Freezer is Full

Confession time- my house is a mess.  I need to do some serious organizing and putting things away.  You see- I have problem.  I have a hard time throwing things away.  I’m forever thinking: “Oh, that could be useful someday”.  So things tend to accumulate.  I’ve got stacks of empty cottage cheese and yogurt cartons, fabric, yarn, old buttons and bits and pieces of this and that in boxes.  My husband is just as bad, collecting bolts, screws and other potentially useful stuff.  We’ve got an overload of ‘things’.  But I guess it isn’t all bad.  Rather than buy new pillows for the couch, I dug into my fabric stash and recovered the ones we had.  When my DH needed a particular size screw for a repair, he sorted through the collection until he found one.  Scrap wood for a project- no problem. Need a pot for a seedling- just go get one.  Materials to send in to school for collage making- got you covered.

So where does the line lie?  How much is too much?  While laid up for the last day and a half with a bad combination of a stomach bug and pulled muscles in my back (I’ll leave that one to your imagination!), I did something I rarely do: watch TV.  I had the opportunity to see a program on hoarders, those people who’s ‘collecting’ is even worse than mine.  But it made me think- Am I really saving things for future use, or do I have a problem?

Considering that I can walk through my home, it’s clean enough to entertain and I don’t have difficulty throwing out truly useless things, I don’t think I’m a hoarder.  And I do generally use the things I save at some point.  But it still leaves the problem of organization.  I’m hoping that once construction is done on the house I’ll have more room  for storage and I’ll get organized (yeah, like that will ever happen!)

But I still feel like I have too much stuff.  But it’s really useful stuff….

Anyone else with this problem?

Make it Inviting

by Paulette of Smith Funny Farm

I’m looking so forward to the holidays, and one thing that means is more overnight guests. I love having visitors. I can’t wait until I have our spare bedroom turned into a cozy guestroom, and I’m hoping I can get it there before the holidays hit.

Here are some things you can do to make your guestroom inviting and comfortable for your guests.

1) Have a comfortable bed…you don’t want your guests achy and sore in the morning from sleeping on a less than comfortable mattress or pillow. Add a feather bed, comfy duvet, good quality sheets. And launder before guests arrive for a fresh feeling, even if sheets have been laundered since last slept on. Depending on your guest…a spritz of lavender or other lovely scent on the sheets would be nice. My son may not like it, my best friend would.

2) Have a small basket available with bottled water, light snacks, maybe a notepad and pen or magazine or two. Also nice to include would be bath salts, bubble bath and luscious lotions. Again, Adam may not care.

3) We have spare bathing suits on hand for guests that would like to spend time in the hot tub. Having robes available would be nice also.

4) Have a chair in the room for sitting, with a table and lamp nearby.

5) Provide privacy. For us this will mean shades or some kind of window covering, because we know our bare windows freak at least one of our regular visitors out – you know who you are

6) Provide a bit of closet space for hanging clothes, as well as having a drawer or two available. This will keep the room neater and more comfortable. A hook on the back of the door might be nice.

7) Provide an alarm clock. We do have roosters to wake us in the country, but they may not be on your guest’s schedule.

8) Bath supplies: Lay out hand towels and bath towel for your guest’s use.

Doesn’t it sound lovely? I know my guests will be glad when I finally get there, and they don’t have to sleep among the unpacked boxes. Soon, friends, soon.

Better To Be Safe Than Sorry

Written by Heather of Heather’s Eden

You know, one of the areas that I am lacking (there’s many, but just ONE of them) is in emergency preparedness. I am so totally unprepared. I spend much of my life flying by the seat of my pants, and walking around with all of my fingers and toes crossed, hoping that nothing goes wrong! Right now I’d be lucky if I could find my purse and keys! And that’s especially bad when you live in hurricane country like I do. Even if I don’t have a family to evacuate, I’ve got five cats, a bird and two turtles to pack up along with myself and any belongings that would fit! If I needed to do it last minute, what would I do?

Well, you don’t wait last minute– that’s what you do! It’s time for me to get prepared. There is one blog in particular that I’ve been casually following for awhile now, in hopes that it would inspire me to get my butt in gear. I guess maybe it’s worked, because I think I’m ready!

The blog is Safely Gathered In. Just the name alone makes you feel all safe and secure, doesn’t it? I love that! The blog is a wealth of information, and includes a free printable list of items for a 72-hour kit. This is what I’m going to start with.

There is no need to overwhelm yourself with the idea of trying to get a kit of 50 items together.  Start small. Go through the list and pull together what you already have. Store the items in a backpack or duffel bag or similar item, or in bins that are easy to move and store. Storage cases and bins on wheels are a good choice for emergencies, when you are likely to have your hands full!

Once that is done, you can start working on the rest of the list. If you are under financial limitations and can’t acquire items all at once, do it little by little. Commit to buying one item per week, or one every month. Whatever it takes for you to get prepared. It may take time, and that’s okay. The bigger your family, the harder you will have to work to be prepared. My big challenge will be stockpiling pet food! Yep, that’s right. We can’t forget the pets. It’s easy to do.

Aside from that, you’ll need to think of things like:

• Cash (remember that if power goes down, so do ATM machines)
• Utility knife (I recently bought a beautiful SOG Field Pup for camping that will do nicely for this!)
• Bucket
• Sewing kit
• Mosquito repellent
• Work gloves
• Garbage bags

Safely Gathered In is by no means your only source of information. There is a wealth of information out there regarding emergency preparedness! Here are just a few:

• Ready
• FEMA: Are You Ready?
• BePrepared.com
• The 7 Store
• 72hours.org

And you may think to yourself, “But I don’t live in hurricane country. I don’t need to worry about being prepared.” However you would be wrong. Everyone has some imminent threat hanging over their head. Here are just some of the situations that a 72-hour kit can be useful for:

• Hurricane
• Earthquake
• Snowstorm
• Car breaks down
• Tornado
• Civil unrest or some outside attack

There’s lots of reasons to be prepared.

So, be smart! Be prepared! Be responsible! I’m getting started this weekend on my 72-hour kit, and then we’ll go from there!

Daily Do’s

Over the past few months of summer, we have fallen into a wonderful routine!  The kids sleep in, sometimes until 9:30!  I get up and get the day started, play in the garden or knit a little.  My daughter and I have tea time with our leisurely breakfast, and we spend our days playing and learning.  It’s been a wonderfully relaxed, but busy summer.

My 6 year old started back to school this past week and I realized that over the summer we’ve also fallen out of the routine of some things.  She has stopped brushing her hair in the mornings, leading to wavy balls of knots.  She has forgotten to brush her teeth many mornings and with genetics like ours we need all the brushing we can get.

She also wants a pet of her own, to which I replied “if you can show me that you will take care of a pet on a daily basis without any reminder… I’ll think about it”.  So, she has started feeding the cats and dog.  All of this got me thinking about how often I have to write list of things I need to remind others to do… “Don’t forget to water the plants.  Don’t forget to write thank you notes for your gifts.  Don’t forget to make your doctors appt.” (Yes honey, I’m talking about you!)  In an effort to reduce my own energy output, I’ve decided to create a “Daily Do” chart.  This one will be focused on my daughter’s chores/things she wants to be reminded of.

So, I took a trip to the local craft store and got a magnetic dry erase board and some flexible magnetic sheets (you can draw on them and cut them out), and some jeweled stickers (because every girl needs her bling!).  You certainly don’t need to buy anything new… you can improvise with paper, tape, sticky notes, thumb tacks… whatever you’ve got.  We already had colored pencils and sparkle tape (more bling!) at home.

I put strips of tape vertically on the dry erase board to mark the 7 days of the week, and horizontally for each “to do”.  We colored pictures of her “daily do’s” on the magnetic paper (seven of each, for each day of the week) and cut them out.  Th pictures correspond with “brush teeth”, “brush hair”, “feed animals”, “practice Tae Kwon Do”, “take a bath”… Whenever she does one of her “to do’s” she moves that magnet to the corresponding day.

Putting on the bling!

Now, each day, she can look at her To Do’s and make sure they have been done, without having to be reminded.  I know that they have charts and things like this at the store, but because she took part in creating it, I think she will be more likely to use it.  Plus, she can add new things when ever she wants.  It doesn’t have to be all about chores… she can make ones for fun accomlishments too… like “Give mommy a big hug!”

Daily Do's

How do you stay organized?

Written by Heather of Heather’s Eden

You know, I really do try to stay organized. Really I do. And I am totally addicted to lists. I always have been. My mother used to laugh at me when I was a teen, sitting on the couch, always with a notebook and pen next to me, creating some sort of list– making plans. For what? I haven’t a clue. But I had my lists!

When flying up to visit with my father for the summer, I would create a list of everything that I was taking with me. It would be checked off as it was packed for my trip up, and then it would be checked off again when it was packed for my return trip.

With a little self-therapy, I’ve gotten much better at controlling my listing compulsions. But I still need my lists.

My boyfriend was always saying that he thought that the lists were my way of distracting myself from actually DOING. I don’t know whether there is any truth to that or not. That could be a part of it, as I am the queen of distracting myself from doing the necessary things that I don’t really want to do. But mainly lists are just my attempt to corral my thoughts, like some crazy cowgirl.

And I have so many different ways of lassoing in those thoughts:

Spring cleaning spreadsheet

There’s the spreadsheets. I’ve been called the Spreadsheet Queen. Sometimes the spreadsheets are very basic, like the one that I use to keep track of the schedule for this blog. Other times they are quite complex, like the one to the left, which is hanging on my frig. It lists “spring cleaning” that I want to get done around here, is sorted by room, and has a “reward” that I get when I complete a room– all in color. Complicated, huh?

To-Do

I have basic To-Do lists as well. I prefer checklists that I make and print from the computer, but a quick list jotted in a notebook will suffice when I am in a hurry. And I do have notebooks. Lots of them. There are probably three of them sitting in my living room right now. Probably at least one or two within my reach of the bed right now. I’m addicted to notebooks. I’m always jotting stuff down.

To-Do calendar

I have the calendar that hangs on the frig where I can write down things that need to be done. Colorful, huh? I like color.

If Nothing Else pad

I love the idea of the NothingElse pad. List things like “If I get NOTHING else done today, I must:”, “If I email NO ONE else today I must email:”, and “If I do NOTHING else at work today, I must:”. Great idea for people like me, who need their thoughts corralled in order to make sense of them.

Organizer

And then there’s  The Complete Household Organizer by Good Housekeeping. This gem of a book collects all of those little bits of information that you always want close at hand. Things like who to call when the A/C quits working, the plumber you used last time that impressed you, the dimensions of all of your rooms (great for rearranging furniture and painting plans), all sorts of maintenance/repair info, car information, mortgage lender, etc. Awesome!

And then of course there are the usual post-it notes and computer reminders to keep me on my toes!

By nature I am horribly scattered and disorganized, and it takes a lot to try to get me organized– as you can see! How do you stay organized? And what is it with women and lists?

On doing it all

by Joanna of Keeping Feet

This weekend, my husband made the comment to me, “You can’t do everything, you know.”

I quickly retorted “I don’t do everything. I just work full-time and keep the house and a garden. Lots of people are able to do that!” (And I was thinking “And I should be able to, too!“)

My husband’s comment stemmed from the fact I was once again complaining about how overrun my garden is with weeds. As we drive around our suburban area, I see so many neat gardens, full of perfect rows, without weeds, plants all bigger and prettier than mine. Yes, I’m growing things organically, and, no, I can’t spend much time during the week tending the very large garden, and, yes, I got seeds started later than I ought so everything small. Enough with the excuses.

My husband elaborated, “And you want to sew, and knit, and cook from scratch, and take care of the church library, and read a big pile of books, and blog in 4 different places. And you always get mad at yourself when you can’t do it all.”

His words resonated. I thought back to my high school years- when I was “busy” on purpose, and took pride in my packed schedule. Even then, I was lectured by my parents about not “doing it all,” but instead picking and choosing what is important to me. So what is important to me now?

My husband feeling loved and cared for
My friends feeling welcome in my home
My actions being loving toward my neighbor and gentle on the earth

How does keeping the garden weed-free or the house dust-free fit into those goals? They are tangential at best. So why do I feel like such a failure when I can’t accomplish these tangential things, but my core goals of caring for my husband, home, friends, etc. are still on track?

It boils down to the Comparison Game. I see my friends who are, in my eyes, able to “do it all” (except, they don’t work at all. And feed their kids McDonalds. Or keep a smaller garden. Or have a spouse home to help. Or … you get the idea.) I try to keep up with the Do-It-All ladies, not realizing that they don’t do it all, either. I shouldn’t expect to be able to.

I am not Super Woman.

I just need to keep reminding myself of that. Because sometimes I try to be.

What’s for dinner?

by Judy of My Freezer is Full

If I had a dollar for every time I have been asked THAT QUESTION I could have that tropical island get away I’ve always wanted.  For any home with children who are old enough to talk, its a perennial question.  Kind of like “How many more miles?” when you’re traveling.

For years I wandered through life being spontaneous, coming up with ideas for dinner at the last minute.  While our children were young it wasn’t that much of an issue because my husband did much of the cooking since he was home with them (he really is an excellent cook).  But when the children were older and he went back to work things went downhill quickly at our house. We tried to stick to our old patterns but found ourselves eating increasingly more ‘convenience foods’.  Now, don’t get me wrong, we never slipped so far as to become one of those families that eats fast food several nights a week, but we stopped doing things like soaking beans to make our own refried beans, ate more boxed foods and  the kids dined on eggo waffles for breakfast.

Then, a few years ago several things came together to make us change our ways.  First, I was frustrated with never knowing what we were going to eat (and being unable to answer THE QUESTION), not having anything thawed and the realization that we were making trips to the grocery store four or more times per week, causing our grocery bill to skyrocket.  Second, I was given a copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and read it with a passion.  Third, we had a family vacation to Colorado to see my sister and our route took us by miles and miles of CAFOs (concentrated animal feed operations).  At that point I made the decision that we needed to make more deliberate choices about our food.  But, in order to do that I needed to be much more organized.  Fortunately, about that same time, my daughter brought a small dry erase board that someone had given to her.  It had magnets on the back and she absentmindedly stuck it on the side of the refrigerator when she came in.

It was then that I had a flash of brilliance (either that or that burning smell was something scorching on the stove). I sat down with her dry erase board and made up a menu for the week so I didn’t have to think about what we were going to have.  As I progressed in my use of food storage and making better choices I began to take stock of what was on hand and plan the menu and my shopping list accordingly.

Three years later, we are still using that same board.  Over the weekend I take stock of supplies, plan the menu and do my major shopping trip.  I know ahead of time what we are having so I can make sure that things are thawed from my freezer, soak beans if necessary, prep a marinade, or whatever tasks need done to make things go more smoothly when I get home from work.

It has also had a lovely side effect.  I now rarely hear THE QUESTION.  My family has all learned that if they want to know what’s for dinner they can look at the menu board.

I’ve heard that there are people who plan their menus for an entire month at a time.  Wow!  That’s impressive! But I’m not that organized.  I sometimes like to look ahead at the weather forecast for the week and plan my meals by the weather.  Some days are good soup days, some days are just meant for grilling out.  Of course, I’m not so rigid that I have to stick to the menu at all costs.  Sometimes life happens: you forget to thaw the roast, your husband forgets to turn on the crockpot before he leaves for work (voice of experience here), you run late from work or you have an evening event. I’ve always got the back up ‘easy meals’.  But that’s for another post.

How about you?  Do you plan ahead for meals or are you spontaneous?